


Strange Spring Dreams

by guileheroine



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Frenemies, Friends to Lovers, Heian Period, Japanese Culture, Letters, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 02:30:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17071772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guileheroine/pseuds/guileheroine
Summary: Lady Asami has a best friend in her letters and a reluctant rival in the court.Heian period historical AU! Secret Santa gift.





	Strange Spring Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thereswaytoomuchsugarinthis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereswaytoomuchsugarinthis/gifts).



> this is a Secret Santa gift for @yahyahwhat on tumblr, who asked for something historical! I went for the Heian period bc i've been reading a lot of Japanese history and thought, 'what historical AU will i need 0 plot for?' hope you enjoy!! 
> 
> if you don't know about the Heian period: it's late classical Japan, and its defining aspects are cultural achievements (mostly by women) and strict aesthetic values and codes of conduct for the aristocracy, who did very little else of note. here's a Crash Course [vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnZEoOJ-cxE) if u don't mind feeling 14. If you do know about it, i apologise for all the liberties taken :D
> 
> this story has a bunch of explanatory notes which will just enhance it if you're not familiar with the context so I'm linking them [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qkN_XePcmeH5F5td4Q3tWj9xCwy6ppbT04j9XzkSnLY/edit?usp=sharing) (read before or after if you wish)

Lady Korra - along with this peculiar clan of hers that had swept into the capital one day on those _freakishly_ muscled horses of theirs and right into the hearts of all the layabouts in the court - was an itch no more scratchable than the one beneath these some fourteen layers of silk on Asami’s arm.

 

But especially that woman. She had hoped to have _somewhat_ brought her around by now.

 

Asami dug a deep but fruitless groove into the fabric on her elbow with her nails, and tried not to pout in her direction. She pursed her lips and waited for anything else to draw her eye in the hall. The weak, pitchy whine from whichever miserable tryhard had been on the bamboo pipes all evening tickled her ears, testing her patience.

 

She had promised to attend this little soiree only because their vanished host was one of her few trueish friends, and poor Opal was severely upset after waiting until well past evening for her (now reviled) (ex-)lover’s next-morning letter. Of course, no one was to know that that was the cause for this diversion, but Asami thought suspicions would certainly be stoked if Opal didn’t reappear soon.

 

Asami was left here itching for a distraction. Her careful glances resumed.

 

At Lady Korra’s side was another woman with her face hidden from view, but Korra herself looked close to death by boredom, which was the easiest way to go here if you were smart (though no one was.) Her companion, deep in conversation at her, was heedless of Korra’s own heedless daze; of her having downed the wine she should have been sipping - but Asami knew.

 

And oh, _no-_

 

Asami had caught her eye.

 

She bit the inside of her cheek, dropping her gaze faster than Opal’s lover had her poor lovelorn friend. Asami didn’t need to wait and see to know that Lady Korra had not smiled upon meeting her gaze.

 

-

 

All her friends were trueish except one.

 

On her way back to her apartments, Asami took a detour, slipping by the shrine. She sat by the pond and watched the white moon appear from behind wisps of cloud, eager to steal a high point from the day before it was completely gone. As she walked back, she read the letter she had picked up by the bench. The lightness in her step grew as she held the paper up close, and it was so very poignant to have to squint against the last purple light.

 

_Dearest Tsubaki,_

 

_I wanted a longer squirrel watch this morning - they are delightful though not so numerous here - but all the women scuttled off to Lady Suyin’s garden to snatch up their share of her newest continental tea, finally ready for the picking. She claims it’s the best variety that her husband has had brought over yet so the women are mad for it. I have my doubts about whether those seeds really came from the Middle Kingdom, though I suppose someone of her proud character should not know I suspect that._

 

_I may tell her, if nothing of interest comes up by evening._

 

_Tonight my mother insists I go to some party at the palace. Hopefully the ladies there won’t be of the scuttling sort, but I hear that the host is this same Suyin’s daughter, so my hopes are not quite up._

 

_To be honest, I think you’re still too soft on your competitors, but tell me more about the contest. I want to hear how you beat them. It brings me unusual glee._

 

_Yours,_

_Ajisai_

 

Upon reflection, Asami thought her friend was probably right. She had allowed her final game of this week’s tournament to drag all the way from breakfast to lunch, when there wasn’t a woman (or man, likely) in the Greater Palace who could outplay her when it came to igo, and much less shogi. The only opponent that provided any sort of challenge had been her dear father.

 

She might have enjoyed a longer meal if she dealt all the blows at her disposal, but oh well - at least this way her mushimono was more tender by the time she got to it. She had pride in her restraint, though perhaps Aji was right and this was not the place to flaunt it.

 

Asami folded the letter as she stepped over the threshold.

 

It was the middle part that prompted a thrill of conspiratorial curiosity to creep through her. If _she_ had been at Opal’s gathering -

 

Asami looked up in thought and rifled through the host of ladies and attendants mingling in the spacious quarters earlier. Opal had had all the screens drawn back to leave a palatial hall and amongst the chatter and tinkle of instruments it had been difficult to recall who was settled where along the long tables. Any one of them might have been her mystery confidante. Had they spoken?

 

No, Asami had only engaged the ladies she knew and already found quite facetious.

 

Instead of having ink and paper fetched she took some from her private box, a relic of her mother’s, spritzed it generously, and sat to write.

 

_Dear Ajisai,_

 

 _Do not disclose this to anyone. Well, don’t disclose where you heard it. But you are perfectly right, Lady Suyin’s tea came off a boat from some island in Saikaid_ _ō_ _. I spent the night with her son. He was quite forthcoming._

 

_Sweetness, don’t worry after the other ladies. You will soon learn if you haven’t already that they concern themselves with whatever hateful distractions they must to keep their appearances up, as these are, after all, all they have._

 

_Have you been to the temples yet? You may find the respite welcome, if nothing else._

 

_One day I would like to show you how I play igo, face to face. Tomorrow I am surprisingly occupied for I have to wash my hair. It is such a bother but you know I still prize it as one of my better assets. Hopefully the day after I might spare an afternoon to produce for you a quick outline of my winning strategy._

 

_Another thing you should know! I was at the party too. It fairly thrills me to know I may have passed your eye._

 

_Ever yours,_

_Tsubaki_

 

-

 

Well practised, Asami barely winced when her attendant gave the final foot of her hair a hard wring. It was heavy but it was roughly one and a quarter times her height. She had calculated that this more than evened the fact that she was far too lean in the body. Then she tried to prevent the undignified slump threatening to proceed when she realised, as she sometimes did, how caught up in these minutiae of courtly refinement she was.

 

Asami had been born into the highest circles at Heian-kyō, but her father had not; and she wondered often if provincial manor life on whatever estate he had shored up for her before dying at the remarkable age of forty might fit her better. The prospect was faintly uncivil so she usually discarded the thought quite soon, but it never did fail to return.

 

Her father had made very well for himself, catching the eyes of lords among lords with his aptitude for harnessing the military technology that the nobility needed to fight their border wars in the unruly north. When these battles had been won they had whisked him back south with them, and her beloved mother (also departed), a daughter of the extended Fujiwara clan, had taken an instant liking.

 

This left Asami in the capital, a minor twig on the family tree whose branches twisted around the entire court and kept the imperial house in a chokehold. In the dense hierarchy, such a heritage put her only a few rungs below the domineers of the whole land. And superior she _did_ feel, but not always for being the cream of this particular crop.

 

If _she_ were to be perfectly forthcoming, some of this was borne out of her own selfish frustrations.

 

Poetry was not something that favoured Asami. Her lines came out strange, in metaphors that fit ill, the syllables uncooperative. Not even her unparalleled calligraphy could salvage them.

 

Asami’s keenness with games, the precision of her paintbrush, the note-perfect ephemerality of the perfumes she concocted, her skill at manipulating the mechanical delights that the sojourners from the continent displayed in their fairs, her _glorious_ hair - none of these attributes she had cultivated seemed to compensate for that one tragic fact.

 

She could hardly fault herself for feeling so lucky that her rank shielded her from the disrepute and the ridicule that otherwise would no doubt hail upon her daily.

 

There had been a tearful morning when the man she was seeing explained - with really very little sympathy, the scoundrel - that as the proud new clerk of the Scribe’s Office he could simply not afford the ignominy their association might bring if her lines to him were ever seen. Asami dismissed it as an elaborate excuse to shake her off and brushed _him_ off without much thought.

 

Then followed a _much_ more tearful morning, when the first poetry competition held in the company of the new Empress, her own distant cousin, disqualified her in the very first round with a discreet jeer. How _shameful!_

 

How to air her grievances in a world where the proof of one’s qualities was in her prose?

 

She had worked it out in a gloomy and pitiful letter, with no metre or measure in sight. A block of impassioned script that she would be mortified for anyone to find. And she hid it on her daily dally at the pond garden by the shrine, against the rim of a flowerpot on the anterior side of the cypress bench. As a sudden afterthought she inked over her name and, scanning about for an alias, signed _tsubaki_ after the first blooms in her line of sight.

 

Miraculously, she was _not_ mortified when the message was found, for its finder wrote her back.

 

 _I will_ _SURELY_ _wither and die if I am forced to spectate at another poetry competition._

 

It made Asami smile even now.

 

Similarly concerned about preserving their reputation, the writer had signed their reply with a pseudonym in kind. It proved to be part of the relief that their correspondence provided: at first the blessing of anonymity, but then - as Asami found she had little to hide from her fast friend - the pleasant intrigue that this mystery of no consequence injected into the humdrum of their daily life.

 

-

 

One evening there was a ceremony for an auspicious spring hosted by one of Asami’s more devout cousins, Fujiwara-no-Kuniko, and the nuns she had invited came down from the mountain into her sweeping courtyard with a gaggle of pilgrims from the provinces. This was the only chance that many of these women, who could not rank higher than her own ladies in waiting by the looks of their robes, would have to experience the pleasures of the capital. Indeed, they clutched the necklines of their kimono and made gasps of awe as their huge glittering eyes cast about the decorated yard. Asami watched with an uncomfortable mixture of disdain and envy.

 

She was glad for the chance to be out under the spring sun. The afternoon was beautiful, with the pleasant twang of the koto strings floating through the courtyard and the trees in full bloom. Another of Asami’s cousins sat rapt before the pond as rippled with each falling blossom, eyes shining. Many drew out pen and paper on the spot.

 

Amongst the attendees milling around the hangings and fragrant trees were some of Lady Korra’s family. Despite herself, Asami scanned the courtyard for that familiar vexing(ly arresting) face, and found it animated in laughter with some of their lowly guests where they sat on the mats. She was sitting with her robes folded in a most inappropriate fashion. Her companions didn’t seem to know, and she didn’t seem to care either way. One of the pilgrims rested their gaze on Asami, and it drew Korra’s back up in turn. Her smile gleamed with distaste.

 

Soon after, Lady Korra came and knelt opposite Asami where she was focused on copying sutras.

 

“Lady Kuniko’s guests would like to know about your makeup,” she said shortly.

 

Whenever they spoke it was lukewarm.

 

Korra did not appear to favour her; and Asami had to admit that, much the same as the poetry, it was perhaps this that fueled her own resentment in like over any deeper antipathy. Why didn’t she like her?

 

Asami rubbed at the unsightly callus on her finger, before pinching the brush between her fingers. “Oh. Why?”

“They’re fond of the way you paint your brows.”

 

“Oh, really.”

 

Korra settled more comfortably, her palms pressing on the unfamiliar brocade on her thighs, lips also tight, scrutinising.

 

Asami sighed inwardly.

 

“So? Won’t you come and speak with them? You _are_ a lady of this house.”

 

Asami sighed outwardly. “I wish I wasn’t.”

 

She curled her tongue instantly, and blinked like a frightened rabbit before Korra’s bewildered face. What spirit had possessed her? She had not thought herself _that_ desperate to ignite this woman’s curiosity.

 

“You -? _Hm._ ” Lady Korra tilted her head, and the strands of her fine hair dipped dangerously close to Asami’s inkwell. “I had imagined you right at home among these ladies.” She did a derisive circle with her eyes, indicating the cloistered circle of the inner court.

 

Among whom Korra herself was rather popular, but whom her family only met these sporadic invitations from, having been conferred titles below these ranks.

 

It positively incensed Asami to know that she was counted among this obviously contemptuous lot in Lady Korra’s esteem.

 

“I assure you I am _not_. They care only for trifles. They spend all their lives dawdling in the palace…”

 

“So do you.” She fairly sneered.

 

“Well, I cultivate the bearing I _have_ to as a lady of this house.”

 

“I thought you didn’t care for their airs.”

 

Asami set her brush down before her hand became less than perfect.

 

Who _was_ she? Where had she come from that she thought she could deride her like this - could herself eschew the rigid trappings of society with little consequence from others, even appreciation? Asami had wondered on many an occasion. She knew they had come from the north - were they Emishi? She had no idea. Perhaps a lordly nikiemishi tribe who had ingratiated themselves with some noble house and stolen south.

 

Lady Korra looked expectant. Looked a little peeved. And eventually, she looked like she had won, and no longer wished to wait on Asami’s inevitably inadequate rebuttal. “Anyway,” she exhaled. “You are not wrong about this place, though you aren’t as special as you think.” She clasped her hands, wearing something of a scowl. “I was hoping to join my cousins when they went to dance today but I learned they were only let in because Eska had adorned herself like a man.” She examined her ill kept nails and sighed gravely.

 

Asami wished she could gather the will to cross her heavy arms, but she was better bred and she kept her mouth even. “Goodness. How hateful.”

 

Later when the festivity approached its close, it was time to produce the waka that all guests of repute should submit to Kuniko in thanks. Asami, dragging her feet, noted that Lady Korra wore a rather distinct grimace as she scribbled lines on her paper. A curious idea entered Asami’s mind, but she stowed it away and focused on her odious task.

 

-

 

Ajisai’s letter that night lifted her mood. Reading it she couldn’t help but remain piqued to certain signs. Aji was quite new to court life, wasn’t she? She had never thought to ask where _she_ came from... Asami chided herself for the wishful thinking - in fact, the thought of such a thought being wishful quite disgusted her.

 

She procured paper and ink and sat before the screen doors that opened to her secluded garden. The weight of her robes spilled from her shoulders to the mats and she sighed with the tranquility she had sought all day finally in her hold.

 

 _Dear Ajisai_ , she wrote.

 

_You would not believe the indignity I suffered from this woman today._

 

She hesitated. The strange possibility roiled in her head and she considered discarding the whole passage for a moment. She kept her recount vague, just in case.

 

_I fear she’s right about me, though I would tell no one but you this. In any case, she was quite superior about it and I found this extremely unbecoming -_

 

(She didn’t.)

 

_\- so I should like to consider her points voided._

 

(She hadn’t.)

 

_I am delighted to hear of your engagements with the temple. No, truthfully, I would have imagined it a strange fit for you too. Hopefully you will find the devotion more fulfilling than other aspects of court life thus far. The monks are not the best looking but I do find the clergy the most sufferable among all courtiers. And salvation is, of course, a most commendable pursuit. Myself, though not being particularly spiritual, I am used to a trip to the temple here and there, if only to show off my latest carriage. You know I design their adornments them myself. I believe the time is approaching for another visit, actually. But the shogi contests in the palace keep me tied to the city this week. Woe!_

 

_I contemplated a beautiful scroll for a short hour today. The landscape was vast and white, and actually, I would like to know how to keep the paper so pristine. There were trees with thick snow on the branches and even the lake in the background was frozen over. Did you say your family had come from the north, or am I misremembering?_

 

_Ever yours,_

_Tsubaki_

 

Before sealing it she took some of her freshly concocted mid-to-late spring scent. Considering herself quite the alchemist, Asami had squeezed in the radical element of the yuzu she had been garnishing her tea with, in with the more conventional notes of lily and agarwood. She thought it added a seasonal vitality most perfumes lacked. Having spritzed the paper generously, she set out to deliver it. She could enjoy a moment by the garden, too. On the way out, she called on her attendants to find out when the next pilgrimage to her preferred temple was (she preferred a more peaceful place than the great ones thronged to by the courtiers daily). She inked the date into her diary.

 

-

 

In the intervening days, she encountered Lady Korra on a few occasions. To her own frustration, she found herself fighting the strange temptation to rearrange her poorly layered sleeves when they shared an exchange. Once, even the absurd suggestion that they slip behind the screen and swap one of her deep blue silks for Asami’s pink - so that she didn’t clash with the season _so_ offensively - crossed her mind.

 

No, Asami did not want to remove _any_ of her layers.

 

“Percussion. I think taking up a gong or a drum would suit you well,” Lady Korra said one day when they were seated together at a recital - it was not an kind suggestion: “See how the beating relieves agitation.”

 

Asami frowned suspiciously as she watched the slats of the clapper clacking together.

 

Korra had taken up singing.

 

“At least, it’s more satisfying than keeping oneself pretty and unheard in the corner all day,” she explained, in earnest now. Asami was glad she had found an outlet, even if Korra was not that enthused in her patronage. And it did lend her suggestion to Asami more credence.

 

Asami tried the gong and found it monstrously discordant. To soothe her senses, she took out her painting box and created a landscape of the mountain with the temple she wanted to visit. It reminded her of Aji, and buoyed with the shared excitement of her friend’s new endeavour, she left it to her with her next letter.

 

-

 

_Tsubaki,_

 

_You are unfortunately as right about the monks as anything else. It has been several trips now and I see none that are to my liking, though I imagine it is for the best for them. They remain celibate, don’t they? I don’t think I have told you much about it, but we have no such practices where I come from. North, yes. I’m hesitant to say more lest I spoil future surprises._

 

_It is going well at the temple. I find this as curious as you do, I would not have dreamt it. I’m able to spend more time out of doors than in - if the pavilions count - which is no small miracle. The head priest, Tenzin, is not yet too fond of my vigour however. I fear you are the only one._

 

_I am so touched by your gift. One of the other ladies said it was a flawless epitome of the transience of life, but I am more taken with the form and the colours. I know this means no less to you. You know that poetry is utterly hateful to me - but oddly, I find that I have to repay you in kind. You have forced my hand!_

 

_The snow is gone that purifies the soul_

_Yet the colours you bring to strange spring dreams_

_Flower, no fewer_

_Than the folds of my fan_

 

_My treasured friend, I have enjoyed our game. You letters lift my mood spectacularly, and I find myself wondering if your company, your face, wouldn’t do the same._

 

_Yours,_

_Ajisai_

 

-

 

Asami wished she could say she was disappointed to find Lady Korra in the entourage that set out on the pilgrimage. She unnerved her indeed, but it was difficult to admit what a memorable feeling that was amongst the rest. They did not talk, though Asami watched her whenever they paused, and felt quite ruffled that she would not even deign to say hello to her when she was nearby.

 

When they approached the foothills of the mountains up where the monastic complex was nestled, they paused to rest. Adjacent to the pagoda that loomed over them was a garden with a cool, wild quality, where the ladies sat in pensive huddles; and a bathhouse, where the more adventurous women ventured. Asami resisted the pull of the garden, piqued by the bathhouse. She had never used anything but her private bath.

 

She slipped past the screens in the exterior deck, following the scent of water. The vast main chamber was clouded by billows of steam and the chatter of the courtly ladies glimpsed between them, who only dipped their feet, reveling in the freedom of this secluded retreat. The damp wood creaked as Asami continued over it to the garden at the back.

 

When she emerged outside, she was exhausted-excited-not _dismayed_ to find Lady Korra standing in the wide pool, holding her robes up at her knees with one fist. My, she must be strong.

 

Asami coughed carefully, reluctant to intrude on her tranquil moment.

 

Korra turned her head briefly.

 

“Oh. It’s you.”

 

Asami’s care withered like a flower without sun. She bit her tongue, found a suitable stone on the edge of the pool, brushed it off and sat, swirling the water with a toe. The fragrant chill of early spring lingered in the air here yet, but the shrubs and trees had burst into vibrant shades that showed otherwise. She thought of Aji’s poem. Her friend was lucky that nobody would see it but Asami, and also that Asami knew to read no insult from it, considering that Aji’s fans certainly carried far fewer folds than Asami’s own. Dear thing. Asami smiled to herself. It warmed her heart that someone else’s writing was as thoroughly charmless as hers.

 

When she raised her eyes they alighted on the back of Lady Korra. So silky as to invite touch (Asami pushed this invitation away), her hair was still no more than a pitiful five feet, such that only a third of it was submerged in the springs. It clumped indecently where it broke the water.

 

“Your hair is clumping,” Asami found it prudent to warn her.

 

Korra turned around. “Unavoidable things.” She sent a disdainful glance at Asami’s lap, where she had spooled her own hair around her forearm to keep it from the water. “Are you going to gossip to the others?”

 

Ugh. Asami chose only to sniff out her affront. There was only one person she gossiped to.

 

In this glance Asami chose to detect some envy. _It isn’t unavoidable_ , she thought irritably. _You are neglectful._ All the same she somewhat envied her negligence.

 

“What brings you on this trip? I hadn’t thought you the devotional type.”

 

Korra swept an arm to indicate their surroundings. “Nature. The escape. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

 

Asami sucked her teeth, narrowing her eyes. “If that is what you think.”

 

Korra continued, “It reminds me of home. I have found dedication to the spiritual arts quite rewarding, unlike much of what you occupy yourself with in the palace.”

 

So the Lady Korra had chosen to spend more than just this day at the temple. Could it be - it couldn’t be! No, Asami decided. Not someone so callous as this. Not someone so dedicated to misunderstanding her.

 

 _Why do you think so little of me?_ She wanted to ask.

 

But Korra was peeling back her silks. “ _I’m_ going to bathe,” she said, like a retort to a remark Asami had never made.

 

Asami averted her eyes sharply. “Very _well_ ,” she returned her tone. Violet, slate, lilac splotched with wet piled onto one arm in the corner of her eye. She rearranged her own robes, holding her spool of hair to her chest.

 

“Won’t you?”

 

“Hm?” Asami could hold her gaze no better than if she were in the grip of kitsune-tsuki. She blinked furiously at the water and set her face.

 

“Disrobe, I mean. Are you not here to bathe?” Korra threw her pile of robes onto the deck. Asami heard them hit it, counted them, imagined her without them, and could not help but look back to confirm her image. Her heart leapt and crept up her throat. Her thoughts fogged like the drone of cicadas had converged upon them.

 

“I - no, I think not,” Asami said curtly, speaking to Korra’s sodden hakama trousers, at the waistband where the wet of the final white layer tucked into them stuck to her skin.

 

Korra laughed, and her laugh hitched. And in it Asami heard the derision she expected, but it was the childlike frustration that finally drew her eyes up.  “I suppose you won’t.” A veritable _growl_ of dismissal - petulant. “ _Of course_ you won’t.”

 

A frightened, possessed rabbit - that’s what Asami was, until she heard the desperation, the strange despair, in her laugh. The cicadas dispersed.

 

“And what do you mean by that?” She glared evenly up at Korra, though she felt the force of her gaze begin to glaze over into a different sort of heat when she looked upon her. She could feel it melt the powder on her skin.

 

It quite matched the waves of reluctant passion that seemed set to boil the water around Korra.

 

“No bathing when you are already perfect, I suppose,” she breathed lowly, bringing her slitted eyes close. “Are you not?”

 

“Why! I would never suggest such a thing,” Asami bit back stubbornly, even though it was exactly what she strove to signal with her every waking moment. Suddenly she stood up, wishing to glower from above, to let her silks go and prove _something_.

 

Korra did not stagger back when she stood. “Then why won’t you bathe?” She scoffed. “Oh, you can’t surprise me.”

Asami let her hair unwind. She pulled back three of her layers at once, hesitating only a little. “Because - you should know, you will need longer than we have here to dry those, let _alone_ suitably rerobe -”

 

Eyes simmering, Korra gripped her shoulders. Her voice rolled as her gaze and her thumbs fell in the hollows of Asami’s neck that she had just exposed. “You are - infuriating.”

 

 _Me?!_ Asami thought with a vicious stab of confused lust, and at once she knit her brow and kissed her.

 

-

 

She managed to slide the old screen before the doorway from where it lay folded against the wood of the wall; and then _she_ was thrown against the wall of the deck and held there by Korra’s roving hands and mouth.

 

The screen had a small puncture; beyond the beat of her blood and the inelegant sounds of mouths and fabrics, she could hear the voices mingling in the bathhouse beyond, where they would see and hear little. Only the rosefinches in the trees saw how all the hair plastered on their skin. The privacy of such an encounter was like none Asami had experienced and truthfully she found the notion quite romantic -

 

She kissed Korra’s face and chin and mouth. She tore open her wet kusode without relenting the force of her kiss, feeling shockingly little aversion at the vulgarity of having exposed her.

 

She was not sure how romantic this really was. Most of her dalliances had an ambivalence that was utterly absent in the sheer fervour of _this_ . Lady Korra had a vigorous, demanding mouth. It took and took and took and the voracity that Asami should have found disagreeable kindled a desire in the _marrow_ \- but she was quite keen to the fact that Korra was working in no small part to - _rumple_ her -

 

(Oh, if only she knew how much she had rumpled her - and bent to match it, Asami licked her lips, sucked her skin -)

 

\- To see what Asami looked like possessed and tongue-tied with her hair wet and thighs wet and all her cute refinements knocked out of their neat lines -

 

A woman possessed. Hungrily, she took handfuls of her hair and her flesh, and Korra put the menace of her mouth in her neck, drawing deeply of her. Asami gasped; posture slipping, she braced a hand on the wood and pushed herself up, grabbing Korra by the buttocks to anchor her in place.

 

Then all of a sudden Lady Korra froze.

 

It took Asami a moment to recover her mind and realise it. With Korra buried indecorously in her skin, she, too, stilled and blinked awkwardly. The rosefinches squawked.

 

Korra drew back wearing a most calculating expression. Asami’s chest rose and fell loudly between them. She ached, most repugnantly. Oh dear.

 

“Your scent,” Korra panted. “I know it.”

 

They considered one another.

 

“Agarwood, lily and -” She dove back and sniffed.

 

 _Oh dear._ Asami spluttered some hair from her mouth as her breath tickled her jaw. _Yes_ . _Agarwood, lily and y-_

 

Korra gasped. “- Something... uniquely… _Tsubaki_.”

 

Struck dumb, Lady Korra’s eyes grew to the size of Asami’s yuzu; Asami’s grew right back. They stared unblinkingly, her shapely behind still in Asami’s hands.

 

-

 

“Who says,” Asami whispered eventually, wiping her mouth from the most horrifically, _romantically_ unrefined of all kisses she might ever have dreamt, “That I can’t surprise you?”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> here it is on [tumblr](http://guileheroine.tumblr.com/post/181255704343/strange-spring-dreams-secret-santa-gift-for) and i also have a [twitter](https://twitter.com/dalpurii) now
> 
> comment which beifong bro u think asami bedded :D


End file.
